I love the idea of wi-fi headphones – but some big questions need answering

You may have seen a new pair of wireless earbuds on our site this week. But these are no ordinary earbuds.

Because while plenty of pairs are a bit samey, the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi genuinely do something new. They can connect over wi-fi as well as Bluetooth, so you can stream music at a greater range from your phone, with advanced AI features and with better sound quality.

A lot to like, in other words. And they could well be the first in a new breed of wireless headphones. But before I start banging the drum for personal streaming over wi-fi, some big questions need answering.

Xiaomi how it works

The Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro come in two versions: one with just Bluetooth, and one with wi-fi as well. The idea is that you would connect the buds to your wireless network to stream music over wi-fi.

The benefits are obvious. You wouldn't need to stay within reach of your phone to keep music playing on your wireless headphones – a boon if you're moving around the house to clean, answer the front door, tend to the garden or for any other reason. As long as you stay within your wi-fi network, the music will keep playing.

Wi-fi also has much greater bandwidth than Bluetooth, which should mean better quality audio and more features. Xiaomi touts 24-bit/96kHz lossless audio at a bandwidth of up to 4.2Mbps, thanks to Qualcomm's Expanded Personal Area Network (XPAN). Bluetooth 5 has a bandwidth of 2Mbps – less than half than Xiaomi's quoted figure.

Not only does this open the door to lossless audio, it also enables some artificial intelligence features. Xiaomi says the Buds 5 Pro can record your calls, transcribe them and translate them too. Pretty nifty.

The addition of wi-fi doesn't impact battery life either. In fact, the wi-fi model of Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro actually last two hours longer than the Bluetooth-only version, and longer than some our favourite pairs like the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4, Sony WF-1000XM5 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

All very impressive. But I have some questions...

Answers needed

The first issue concerns wi-fi networks. Xiaomi hasn't said whether its earbuds will support more than one wi-fi network. Which means you might be tied to only using your home or work wi-fi.

Of course you could still switch to Bluetooth when away from either location. But I can't help but feel this would be a cop out.

With wi-fi spanning more of our cities, I want a pair of headphones that can flit between wireless networks at the drop of an earbud. It might be a bit of a pain at first, as each network would require joining manually. But our phones can remember numerous wireless networks and join them without needing manual prodding each time. Surely a pair of headphones could do the same?

Next is the experience of switching from Bluetooth to wi-fi and back again.

We've all loaded Netflix only to see a grainy, bitty mess of a picture until it's buffered enough to boost the quality. Imagine the audio equivalent of that.

Hopefully Xiaomi can come up with a way to smooth such transitions. But constant changes in sound quality as you dip in and out of wi-fi networks on your travels sounds pretty hellish to me.

Then there's the question of sound quality more generally. We haven't reviewed any Xiaomi earbuds for at least a couple of years, which says a lot. The firm specialises in budget buds – nothing wrong with that, but I do wonder if it's best placed to lead this new wave of wireless headphones.

Finally, just how accessible a proposition will this be? The wi-fi feature will require pairing with a phone that features a compatible Qualcomm chipset. At the moment, that's limited to the Xiaomi 15 and 15 Ultra, and that's it. Slim pickings indeed.

A new era in wireless listening?

In other words, I'm going to need some convincing.

Wi-fi headphones are an exciting prospect, and do have some real potential to shake up the very competitive wireless headphone market. Sonos has enabled wi-fi on its Ace headphones, but only for use with select Sonos soundbars. You can bet that Apple is working on bringing wi-fi to its AirPods range, too.

Whoever can execute wi-fi in the most compelling way will win this war. Apple already has the product portfolio and seamless user interface at its disposal. But it does tend to take its time coming to market, as it has with other innovations like AI and a voice assistant (the original iPhone didn't even have 3G, remember).

In the meantime, the door is open for Sonos, Sony and Bose. Who will step through it first?

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